Steve Waganer asked:


Other than Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media Optimization (SMO) can also drag more and more audience to your websites. Through social media optimization, your site would get a good ranking on the search engine. Internet has become a strong weapon to fight against unsocial factor. Via internet, we can share our ideas and knowledge with others. Moreover, communication has become quite feasible through internet. Social media optimization is a method of generating publicity through online processes, communities and websites. Uploading videos, blogging, forums, discussions enhance the effect of social media optimization. It has brought people nearer to each other.

Through social media optimization, people can advertise any of their products or services. Social media optimization utilizes the techniques of social bookmarking, video, photo sharing and blogging. Today, the gift of social media optimization like Orkut and Facebook are receiving much popularity. Social Media Optimization is an effective tool of advertising. Any new product or service are reaching people’s ear very instantly. Internet makes people get the product and services. Through Social Media Optimization, people are becoming more and more social. You can also get yourself updated with any new happenings. It has made life very easy and hassle free. Everything happens very instantly. Social media optimization makes communication very easy.

Three ways to excel at social media optimization are-(1) Generate interesting contents, write what you feel, people are more interested to know your feelings, (2) Know your target audience and plan things accordingly and (3) Your content and product should be very interesting and should had the capacity to drag more and more audience. Linkage is an important factor of social media optimization. Five rules for conducting an SMO for a client’s website are- (1) Increasing linkability, (2) Add bookmarking sites and tag your article, (3) Reward inbound links, (4) Submit your content on relevant sites and (5) Encouraging mashup. RSS and flickr may also be very useful. Social media optimization is a form of search engine optimization. Social media optimization requires proper planning. A lot of research should be undertaken. It has made the world very small. People get instant news of their near and dear ones.

People are coming out with their views and opinions. They are updating themselves with any new happening. New options are opened for the internet surfers. Interaction has become quite easy through social media optimization. Exchange of ideas and opinions are getting prominent. Through social media optimization, many businessmen are able to popularize their products. Your site receives popularity only through social media optimization. Social media optimizing requires proper planning and strategies. Booking of tickets or availing loans is all possible though internet. Online business is flourishing day by day. Your website will reach the top only when your site is visited time and again. Spamming is quite common and steps should be taken to get rid of spammers. Spamming may cause a big harm to your site. Social media optimizing is a blessing for one and all.



DAVIS

David Ogden asked:


Social media optimization is where you use different ways to generate publicity for your Internet business. These ways center on the social media and online communities of people who have common interests such as yours.

In this article let’s talk about five ways you can use social media optimization to get the word out about your Internet business.

1. One of the most effective ways to use social media optimization to build your Internet business is to combine blogging and search engine optimization. Optimizing a blog post, so that its search engine friendly is no different than optimizing a web page has been in the past.

They key here is to target longer keyword phrases so that you have a better chance of ending up on page 1 of a search engine faster. To do this just include your keyword phrase as close to the front of the title is possible, and also include it in the body of the article with emphasis such as bolding or underlining.

2. RSS feeds are another excellent way to optimize your blog for social media. Having a large subscriber base to your RSS feed is a great way to instantly keep people up to date on what you are doing in your Internet business every time you post a blog article.

3. Adding a Digg button would be another way that you could optimize your blog for social media purposes. This allows people to vote on the popularity of your blog article and it is one of the largest social directories, so they get a lot of search engine traffic there as well. This can lead to back links to your blog which serve as search engine bait.

4. You Tube videos are an extremely popular way to get your sales message out in a blog post. These can also create viral marketing, which is extremely important when it comes to creating more traffic that you might normally not get. A popular video can be downloaded and watched literally thousands of times as word spreads about it.

5. Sharing photos is another way to get people involved. Websites such as Flickr make this very easy to do. Flickr is an image and video hosting website, web services suite, and online community platform that many bloggers use to share photos online.

This is five ways to use social media optimization to get people involved with your Internet business. It is worth spending time learning how to do this because this form of creating publicity is only going to increase in the future.



FOSTER

Bob Withers asked:


Social Media sites are basically communities where like minded people gather to share information and experiences. They are viewed everyday by massive numbers of people and these same people actually generate the content for these sites. These sites are growing in importance because they contain information users find interesting, timely and informative and they are becoming a target for Internet Marketers who see them as an untapped reservoir of potential clients.

The top five Social Media websites in terms of Inbound Links, Google Page Rank, Alexa Rank, and U.S. traffic data from Compete and Quantcast are lead by MySpace. MySpace is a popular social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos for people internationally.

It is one of the most successful sites in recent years, amassing 124 million profiles and has transformed life online since its launch. MySpace is one of the most visited sites in the world and it’s introducing a huge number of people to content syndication and they allow millions of people around the world to publish to the web for the first time.

It is by far the dominant social network in the US and is at an all time high in terms of audience reach and engagement according to both comScore and Neilsen. Coming in second is Wikipedia. Wikipedia is booming in terms of visitors and contributors. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, for the most part written by the masses and therefore should be viewed accordingly.

It is meant to be a starting point, a place to go for basic information and therefore it’s like any encyclopedia, a place to begin your research but not a place to end it. Wikipedia is full of information, but this doesn’t mean that it’s all reliable information. Wikipedia is a good example of the new Web 2.0 and is a fine first step to get the basics quickly, especially for technology and pop culture related questions.

It’s a wonderful resource if you use your own judgment and don’t always believe what you read. It is supported by a non-profit organization and exists to serve information in an open platform. Anyone can edit it and, of course, this opens it up for all the issues and inaccuracies that come with an open platform. However, Wikipedia is a wonderful resource and often provides excellent summaries and detailed articles.

In third place we have YouTube. YouTube is a video sharing website where users can upload, view and share video clips. Founded in February 2005, and based in San Mateo, California, they specialize in showing short videos created by everyday people. YouTube is a consumer media company for people to watch and share original videos worldwide through a Web experience.

It is the most popular site to visit for viewing online videos, sharing your favorite videos and for commenting on what you’ve seen. A slightly newer feature of YouTube is the ability to send invitations to people through email by using the “Invite Your Friends” feature.

In fourth place we have Facebook. According to Wikipedia: “Facebook is a social networking website launched on February 4, 2004. The free-access website is privately owned and operated by Facebook, Inc. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves.”

Finally, at number five we have Photobucket. Photobucket is a photo-sharing and hosting site owned by News Corp. Photobucket is a photo and video tool that could become an online warehouse for the storage of digital media.

It is the Web’s most popular creative focal point, with nearly 40 million unique users around the world linking billions of personal photos, graphics and videos daily to hundreds of thousands of websites. It’s a tool that allows users to host images for use on social networking, e-commerce, gaming and blogging sites.

These sites are all about shared experiences and are based on the technology of Web 2.0. Social media sites are where people come together online to interact, share experiences and make friends. When formulating your Social Media Marketing strategy these five sites are the ones to target in order to make your presence known in the social media network and to drive this traffic to your website. They are the new wave online and it’s a wave which doesn’t appear to be going out anytime soon.



CHESTER

Era William asked:


Successful social media brings in lots of traffic. It act as a toolbox which contain communication, association and multimedia tools for sharing your content.

Question of use or not to use social media always occur in Business owners mind. Social media has both pros & cons in some way. So to clarify this question lets take a look at the following:

Security company FaceTime Communications has released results from a survey in which it asked over 500 IT managers and employees about their Internet and social media habits at work. The survey revealed that:

- 79% of workers use Facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube at work for business reasons, and of those business reasons, 54% cited professional networking, 52% said research, and 52% said learning about colleagues were what they used them for.

- 82% say they use social media sites for personal reasons

- 51% of workers use social networks at least once a day

- 62% said LinkedIn was their preferred network for business purposes while 55% said they prefer YouTube for personal reasons.

Based on this survey alone, there isn’t a whole lot of difference between the amount of people using social media for business reasons and those for personal ones. There is no clear cut answer to the question, “Is social media good for my business?” There are obviously pros and cons.

Pros

Networking:

From networking point of view social media is the best way to network with others. These are totally free. You do not need to pay any kind of payment for social media. If you are just launching your product in the market or trying to make famous your business, social media is a good way.

Brand:

Branding is also a good pro of social media. You can expose your brand by making your network with Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, etc. and keep your already famous brand fresh.

Continue on blog….!



FREDRIC

Bob Withers asked:


Social Media Optimization is an internet marketing technique that includes a number of methods to promote your product, service, business, or website on social media.

Social Media Optimization is associated with search engine marketing, but differs in that the primary focus is on driving traffic from sources other than search engines, though improved search ranking is also a benefit of successful Social Media Optimization.

Social media optimization is similar to viral marketing where word of mouth is created through the use of networking in social bookmarking, video and photo sharing websites.

It is still very much in its infancy and is only one element of being everywhere online. Social Media Optimization is essentially based on quality, or how good is my content?

It presents businesses with a way to connect and interact with their customers and prospective customers that was never available to them before. It is interacting with consumers wherever they are online and in whatever format they want the interaction to take place.

Social media optimization is all about creativity, finding creative ways to get your message out there and using creative tools to have your content easily found, distributed and shared online. It is about improving the linking structure of your website to make it highly visible in social media searches.

Social media optimization is the latest buzzword that is capturing the attention of webmasters and is simply the practice of ensuring that a website, article, or video is primed to become a part of the social media network. Social media optimization is utilizing these social media sites and the social media networks to popularize a product, a service, an organization or a concept.

It’s an excellent technique for website promotion and gives your Website and business more visibility and instant results. It is the process of distributing your content across all available Social Media networks and enhances your internet presence by effectively using these media, including social networking, social book marking, blogs, wikis, groups, and other social sites.

Social media optimization is driven by the technology of Web 2 and is all about forming groups of like- minded people and sharing information. Social Media Optimization is more than just writing content for the purpose of garnering links to your website.

It’s about optimizing your pages to help them connect with online communities and is defined by Wikipedia as a way to optimize websites so they would be more easily connected or interlaced with online communities and community websites.

According to Wikipedia: Social media marketing (SMM) combines the goals of internet marketing with social media sites such as Digg, Flickr, MySpace, YouTube and many others.

Social media optimization (SMO) and Social Media Marketing strategies are employed by empowered Search Engine Optimization to promote the site through the use of networking in social bookmarking, social networks, video sharing sites and photo sharing sites.

Social media optimization is a set of methods for generating publicity through social media, online communities and community websites.

The evolution of social media optimization will take some time in coming and has yet to reach its full potential but has the opportunity to replace Search Engine Optimization as one of the top Internet Marketing strategies in use today.



BRANT

harsh asked:


 

SMO or Social Media Optimization is the latest trend in the field of online marketing. From hindsight SMO seems like an inevitable consequence of the rapid growth of social sites on the net as well as the recent bursts in popularity of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SMM (Social Media Marketing) but it differs from them in many ways. SEO as the name suggests involves more publicity on the organic searches of the various search engines but SMO involves more publicity on all the other sources. The term Social Media Optimization is attributed to a certain Mr. Rohit Bhargava.

 

Let us breakdown what SMO actually means. This requires us to understand what social media is. Social media is different from traditional media in the sense that it is much more interactive basically involving open discussions and dialogues about the relevant content which in turn can be anything and everything. Social media includes all the various social networking sites, internet forums, blogs as well as audio/video sharing. So now SMO can be taken to be an optimizing technique involving such online communities.

 

Your main aim in SMO is to promote yourself on the afore mentioned forums. But this does not mean blatant and mindless plugging. This process must be done very intelligently but don’t get scared off, anybody can do it.

 

If I put it in one line all then you have to modify your content so as to make it more promotion friendly. You want to be more visible on the internet as a whole excluding the search engines but the two are not mutually exclusive because if you are more visible throughout the web then your organic search ranks will automatically go up. You can easily publicize your site by making bookmarking and tagging easy. Just like anywhere else, a catchy title goes a long way in SMO. Your content should be concise and focused. Try to go for the top user status. The key here is to create link bait. It is kind of a word of mouth thing for the digital age. You want your link to be distributed as much as possible. For that you have to participate very fervently and regularly, and keep in mind that this is a two way process so be open and reply and comment on other peoples’ blogs etc.

 

Because it is still in its nascent stage, everyday new benefits and uses of SMO are being discovered. The single most important benefit of SMO is the targeted nature of its approach. Your links are promoted only and exactly where people might be interested or would sooner or later require your services. This ensures quality traffic i.e. traffic only from prospective clients. It can also generate quantity. SMO has been known to attract large amounts of traffic in a very short span of time but this does not mean that its effects are only short term. It guarantees steady traffic for a long time. Content sharing can be done in both audio and video formats, which is always an added advantage.

 

 

Looking at so many advantages you might be tempted in indulging in practices like spamming or distribution of biased information or violation of community rules or even paying for votes. But in accordance with online ethics such acts must be avoided at all costs.

 

To know more about Social Media Optimization and its benefits visit http://www.socialmedia-optimization.com



GAVIN

Gregory Burrus asked:


There have been many debates as to whether internet marketing services that use social networking and media sharing web sites to improve search engine optimization really work. Do they actually help your website gain improved search engine rankings? These all have been referred to by terms like social media, social media marketing, word of mouth marketing, buzz marketing and web 2.0. Social websites have become the latest craze on the internet and these terms have become the buzz words.

Social media websites and networking web sites offer the website owner a straightforward approach to bond with another community of people who have related points of views or interests like you. Some social networking websites group people with common interests, but some websites are “traditional networking sites” and allow you to search for friends based on your interests. So now how do these websites really operate. In websites like MySpace users share music which was what helped rocket MYspace into the well renown place it is today and in Facebook, users create their personal information that they want shared and use pictures, software programs and audio, videos to display or depict their business environment. In websites like Fastpitch, Joe Popular and Adlandpro the users create product and sale pitches and work with each other. Promotiing your website using these new tools is termed social media marketing.

How can you benefit and improve your search engine optimization ranking by using social media websites? When you use social media marketing and social networking , you have the opportunity to expose your website to a much larger group of people. When your site becomes popular in a social media site, people talk about your site and the post that becomes popular. This is a form of viral marketing that is word of mouth. The additional links means that as you grow these natural links from a large number of relevant websites, your rankings improve in the search engine due to increased organic search traffic.

Another advantage is that search engines programs that roam the web are keen on social media and networking websites and typically go after links on these websites. This means if you have your site link on social networking and bookmarking websites, your search engine optimization ranking is better and your website site will be indexed quickly. Getting bookmarked from different users and different social media websites will definitely help your site rank better on search engines.

Like it or not, social media websites have become an integral part of the internet because social marketing is easy to do, search engines love social links and hence your business by default will benefit. So if you are engaged in operating a website, and search engine optimization is important then you must realign your site to exploit the popular social media websites for increased traffic. To take advantage of this new method of building business you need to know what steps to perform? Well explore search engine optimization services. Also explore social media marketing and the difference to social networking websites.



BEN

Steve Waganer asked:


Almost every business nowadays has an online presence, as the internet is the new buzzword in communication. An online presence can work wonders for your business, provided you go about promoting it the right way and using the right techniques. One such crucial method for promoting your website to the world is the use of the popular social media platforms. The platforms serve as a place where people interact socially through the internet and the word of mouth helps to carry a message forward. Social media optimization techniques make sure that whatever the message that is being spread and promoted on these platforms consists of websites and content that have been incorporated with key elements. The specific elements included in this manner make it easier for the website or content to be spread across the popular social sites.

An important step of carrying out social media optimization procedure is to increase the linkability of your website through the willingness of other websites or articles to link back to your website. The more useful and informative your site, the more likely it is to get links from other authority websites. Some of the most effective ways to achieve this is through keyword specific content, articles, RSS feeds and blogs. Optimizing the content and website to make it more acceptable and popular on the social media platforms is the first priority task of a social media optimization procedure. When you get traffic directed to your site, the user should be happy with the quality and relevance of information provided by your site or chances are that he may not return.

When a user visits your website and likes what he sees, chances are that he would like to return to it and also tell his friends about your website. This brings us to the next step of social media optimization that deals with the concept of tagging and bookmarking a site. A website should make it easy for the user to tag a page link for future reference or simply to let more and more people know about the website. Tagging links such as Digg or Technorati can be easily used but make sure that a suggestion box is provided along with it so that the visitor can add a relevant note to the tag.

Another good way to carry out social media optimization is by rewarding all the inbound links that you get for your website. Rewards to people or websites that link back to you help them to stay interested in providing promotion for your website in the future as well. It is also equally important to help your content travel to further widen its reach and scope. Submitting content to relevant high traffic websites will help to make awareness about your online presence, a task easily accomplished, thanks to social media optimization techniques. Such methods as well as more means to promote a website like mash ups with another high traffic and relevant website, all conjoin to provide the apt solution for optimizing any website.



GREGORIO

Bob Withers asked:


The most recent phenomenon to hit the Internet Marketing scene in recent years is another form of Internet Marketing in its own right called Social Media Marketing. While Social Media Marketing has the capability to drive hordes of targeted traffic to your website there are still some pitfalls involved which you should try to avoid, at all costs, if you want to be successful with your Social Media Marketing campaign.

First of all one of the major targets of Social Media Marketers are the social media websites themselves, for example, MySpace and Facebook. In order to target and market to these sites you have to join and attract friends to your profile page. The first thing to avoid after joining is becoming involved with any of the software available which allows you to send mass invitations to certain groups you may have targeted inviting them to be your friends.

Everyone in the group receives a generic message inviting them to be your friend. If the site owner or webmaster discovers you are using this software you could be banned for life or, at the very least, have your membership suspended for a period of time. This can result in giving you a bad reputation within this community and make it very difficult to build any type of trusting relationship you need to establish for your future marketing activities on this site.

Another pitfall to be avoided is related somewhat to the first demonstrating how any type of news, good or bad, travels fast within these social media networks. When you approach your Social Media Marketing campaign and any of these social media websites you have to do so with the right attitude. By saying this I mean you have to be open and honest about your intentions. You have to be Transparent.

If you try to deceive any of your social networks it will usually come back to haunt you which can, again, result in a tarnished if not trashed reputation within these internet communities. A wise Internet Marketer once told me, when it comes to Internet Marketing the more you give, the more you receive. This brings us to a third pitfall which, if not avoided, can stall your Social Media Marketing campaign as if it were mired in quicksand. And this is, always be available and eager to offer help and advice.

But don’t offer advice if it’s not requested. If you are available to answer a Blog or forum question for someone who is stuck in a particular situation and needs help then by all means try to help. This will pay big dividends later on when needed because your reputation will precede you which, in this case, will be a good thing.

A fourth and final pitfall has to do with knowing who you are approaching. In other words you wouldn’t take a trip to Singapore without doing a little preparation and study about the culture and practices of these particular people. You should take the same approach when planning your social media campaign. If you’re approaching communities such as Facebook or MySpace, learn the proper etiquette and above all try not to offend anyone.

Especially try not to offend anyone who wields any kind of influence or power over the other members of the community. This too can result in a quick death for your Social Media Marketing campaign. If you approach your promotion with these four pitfalls in mind and put in the necessary planning and preparation as you would with any marketing campaign then you will be much more likely to encounter success with your social media strategy.



GEORGE

Amit Chakraborty asked:


Users of social media applications are increasing everyday. These applications are also getting more popular as newer features are added. Being available all over the world make them perfect for advertisements that require low budget. With millions of registered and active users there is a great chance of gathering more clients and visitors to increase your revenue.

However, before any company or individual can take the most out of social media marketing, there should be a strategy implemented when doing the promotion. Let us consider some of it through this article.



Knowing your environment. Before participating in any social media application, it is strongly recommended to research about it. This will build your expectations once you become a member of it. Also, other applications might not be appropriate for your product.





Focusing on the right market. As a webmaster of a travel and tourism website, it is recommended that you choose social media applications that are related to your website. Same applies to other webmasters whose websites have different themes. Thousands of forums and blogs are available for you to be a member and participate.



Your participation will count most. This is where other members get to know you and the service or product that you are promoting. Leaving relevant comments and recommendations will give you authority to your field.



Presenting your product. Once you have chosen the right environment and settled a name for you, it’s time to think on how to present your product. Mostly in forums and blogs a product can be presented through signatures with active links linking to your own website. For applications such as Facebook and MySpace, you can create a simple sales copy or a review of your product and incorporate it to your personal space.





Referring your product. The best way to spread what you have is to let others know it. Surprise your network with your product by asking them to visit your website and make their own review. If they find it reliable and effective, you will surely get referrals to their friends.





Remain Professional. Although social media applications are open to the public, it is not advisable to harass other members when promoting your product. Discretely place information about your product to your network without disturbing their view and invading their privacy.





Do not spam emails. Most products presented through social media applications are directed through emails. Do not ever send spam emails discussing about your product. This will annoy your recipients and will be a deduction to your credibility. Instead do it properly and professionally.



These techniques will definitely help you in presenting your product by taking advantage of social media marketing. There is no need to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars in marketing your product. Just a simple imagination mixed with creativity will result to good a social media strategy.



ANTON